[Random-bits] Bob Zoellick and medicine patents in poor countries: The Huffington Post

[James Packard Love]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/bob-zoellick-and- 
medicine_b_49929.html

Bob Zoellick and medicine patents in poor countries: The Huffington Post
James Love, May 30, 2007

First the good, then the bad, and then: what's next?

Good Bob

When Bob Zoellick was appointed George W. Bush's choice for United  
States Trade Representative (USTR), public health groups, like ours,  
were concerned. Would Zoellick retain USTR's very new policy  
(announced by President Clinton on December 1, 1999, at the chaotic  
Seattle WTO ministerial) to consider the impact of trade policy and  
medical patents on public health in developing countries?

Or, as many expected, would he reverse policy and turn USTR back over  
to big pharma, and use the agency as a club to push for tougher rules  
on patents and other intellectual property protections on medicines.

Zoellick surprised most people by announcing he would retain the  
newer public-health friendly approach, and also persuaded George W.  
Bush to keep intact Executive Order 13155, which President Clinton  
had issued a year earlier (May 10, 2000), prohibiting federal  
employees from seeking "TRIPS Plus" intellectual property protections  
in sub-Saharan Africa, when it interfered with access to treatments  
for AIDS. But this was not all.

Bill Clinton had actually filed a WTO case against Brazil in January  
2001, days before he left office, over Brazil's efforts to use  
compulsory licensing of patents to promote local production of AIDS  
drugs. The case was very controversial, and the subject to criticism  
by activists, and the subject of Tina Rosenberg's influential New  
York Times account of AIDS treatment in Brazil. Zoellick dropped the  
case, after a (secret) deal with Brazil to consult with the U.S.  
before issuing such licenses.[1]

In November 2001, resisting enormous pressure from pharmaceutical  
CEOs, Zoellick signed on to the historic and much praised Doha  
Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. Among other things, this  
declaration declared:

<blockquote>
     We agree that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not  
prevent members from taking measures to protect public health.  
Accordingly, while reiterating our commitment to the TRIPS Agreement,  
we affirm that the Agreement can and should be interpreted and  
implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect  
public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for  
all.

     In this connection, we reaffirm the right of WTO members to use,  
to the full, the provisions in the TRIPS Agreement, which provide  
flexibility for this purpose.
</blockquote>

Bad Bob

Big pharma was shaken by Zoellick's first year as USTR. By early  
2002, things had changed. With regular meetings with Rove and Josh  
Bolten, the pharma companies we able to closely dictate USTR policy  
on a number of issues. By the end of 2002 USTR was receiving in some  
cases, hourly phone calls from the White House on negotiations over  
how to implement the 2001 agreement. The results were not pretty. But  
from our perspective, it seemed as though the problem was the White  
House, and in particular Rove and Bolten, and not Zoellick.

In any event, Zoellick devised a new and highly effective way to push  
higher IPR rules for developing countries -- they were put into  
bilateral agreements where the poor countries had almost now power to  
resist. Zoellick the technocrat, was worse than many ideologies, in  
terms of the impact. In this case, competence was not a good thing.

Zoellick then moved on, and the next two USTR chiefs were  
increasingly worst than Zoellick on these issues.

All of this pushed poor countries in ways that make a mockery of the  
promises the U.S. made in 2001, at Doha.

What's next?

The World Bank is supposed to be an advocate for the poor. Under  
Wolfowitz, as under his predecessor, the Bank took in pharmaceutical  
industry personnel to deal with sensitive procurement and  
pharmaceutical policy issues, with almost no conflict of interest  
protections. But Wolfowitz did not completely prevent the World Bank  
from doing the right thing. The record was mixed.

Zoellick comes at a time when the World Bank is being asked to  
represent the poor in debates over the role of intellectual property  
protection and development. He doesn't like big pharma, but he has  
been a team player on many occasions, so it will be interesting to  
see what he does with his new job, with his benefactor leaving office  
January 2009.

I hope we see Good Bob, and not Bad Bob.

-----Footnote----
[1] Brazil has never used this provision in its patent law. This year  
Brazil issued it's first compulsory license on an AIDS drug, under a  
different part of their law.


----------------------------------------------
James Packard Love
Knowledge Ecology International
mailto:james.love@keionline.org
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / U.S. mobile+1.202.361.3040, Geneva mobile  
+41.76.413.6584

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks." Bill Walton"